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hind. Some trekked deliberate
ly, like the pious on holy pur
pose. Others hastily, as if
driven by fear. And some strol
led pensively.
“Are you Glatstein?” I asked
a pair of baffled eyes, and the
answer was a bewildered yes.
We had been total strangers,
never having met before, but I
was completely certain as I
tapped his shoulder that here
was the young poet whose
golden pen was etching a revo
lution in Yiddish poetry and
whose linguistic spears, were
piercing the sacrosanct in se
mantics, medium and theme.
Yiddish creativity in Ameri
ca was at that time still welded
to shtetl, to the native lands.
Russia, Poland. Rumania. Au
stria and other centers of Jew
ish congregation. The Yiddish
novelists had not yet discover
ed America and the poets most
often were chained to a lyric
ism whose charm lay in evok
ing distant remembrances.
The local landscape had not
yet sufficiently impressed it
self on the creative artist as a
ripe theme for poetry or liter
ary prose. In time, of course.
Yiddish was to absorb the
aroma of the American soil and
to produce outstanding works
deriving from the new climate.
One example that comes read
ily to mind is J J. Schwartz's
“Kentucky." a piece of genuine
Americana comparable to any
that has been penned by native
poets.
The "Old Country" was still
beckoning many of the Yid
dish writers in those days. The
American climate, they felt,
was not conducive to literary
creativity and the Jewish im
migrant was too busy adjusting
himself to his new surround
ings to pay attention to scribes
and elegant penmen. The tra
dition of reading was the first
( f the luggage to be discarded
by the new immigrants, and
the poets and artists were
ciaving for the niches where
there was “sviva." climate, at
mosphere. But amidst all this
Ihere was awareness among
the creative in the Yiddish
lingue that here was the new
center of Jewish creativeness.
< f Jewish growth. As more and
more literary greats began
i warming to our shores, there
was mounting realization that
anchoring to new soil implied
new paths, new visions, new
horizons, if the Yiddish med
ium was to bear fruit.
When Jacob Glatstein ar
rived from Poland as a young
man—almost a boy—he fell in
to a stream of literary debate
that was current at the time
in a hopeful America. The new
century-or so it was thought—
was beginning to find itself,
and the artists were asserting
themselves with a bold and
abundant articulateness. Amer
ica then appeared to be see
thing more with literary de
bate than political discussion.
It was against this back
ground that Glatstein was
emerging as a poet and initia
tor of a new school in Yiddish
poetry and prose as well. In-
trospectivism today has worn
thin on Glatstein himself, but
in those days it was a daring
innovation, a path larded with
traps for all but the genuinely
gifted. However, the gift that
Glatstein brought to Yiddish
poetry is not introspectiveness,
but incomparable talent, com
bining audacious artistic sweep
with savor of Jewish wisdom.
Glatstein has a sweeping
theme, and there is no emotion
he cannot limn. He has a re
markable facility for subtlety
and most elusive of nuances.
He combines wisdom with sa
tire. depth with beauty, wrath
with balance. The canvas on
which he paints is limitless in
a way, for no theme is alien to
his fertile mind. But his colors
are at their most wrathful best
when he lamentizes Jewish
destiny. Jewish deterioration,
Jewish pathlessness. He feels
Jewish hurt with painful sen
sitivity, so much so that he
even bids the world a symbolic
"good night" in one of his
poems, counselling Jewish re
turn to nooks and niches and
ghettoes where there is no
badgering, no sullying of val
ues. no admixing. His meta
phors are striking, his lan
guage vigorous and his sweep
overpowering.
Glatstein now has mellowed
a good deal. But his artistry
has neither diminished nor
faded. It is as fresh as on the
day when he composed his in
credibly fanciful poem “Tzella
Tzeldi” and as refreshing as
the probable early morning
hour when he penned what is
one of the greatest poems of all
time—"Sesame.”
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